A girl that just loves to express herself. @kurixhunter - Tumblr Blog

Aug 2, 2023

‘ the goddess and the hound ’

hunter x f!reader

word count : 8.7k (jesus christ)

warnings/tags : jedi!reader, order 66, death, violence, slight use of the dark side, smut (f! receiving oral), religion talk/references, pining, coma (sort of), love confessions, angst, pining

summary : you recount everything that’s happened to lead you where you are now - with your old clone unit as a survivor of order 66. when trouble brews, you discover just what you would do to keep those you love safe.

author’s note: i wrote this all in one (1) day because i have no life

inspired by :

durban skies by bastille

from eden by hozier

The woods were dark and dense, a confusing maze of lookalike directions and a sky hidden above the swaying canopy above. Not even the starlight could penetrate the wistful gazes of the treetops as they watched the lone creature moving along the uneven terrain. Eyes sharp and ears pricked to the slightest of sounds even miles away, the hound tread unknown ground with nothing but the fur on his back to his name. Nose turned up to the wind and tail twitching with uncertainty, he followed the path of his own making, unsure of just where he was going.

A flicker of hazy golden light reached out to grasp his attention. His paws halted in their movements, curiosity piqued. He had not seen this before; it was new and strange, a beacon filled with the promise of either danger or reward. The hound was a bold being, filled with the bravery of something bigger than him. He changed tracks and went after the light.

He came to the tree line, the edge of the woods, the end of what he knew. The forest gave way to a clearing that housed a cabin, hand built and standing on legs that would give out only when the world ended. The hound had never seen anything like the sight before him. His eyes dragged to a window that gave him a shallow peek inside the cabin, where he was just able to make out the figure of a woman - a human - pacing back and forth.

He knew he should have let it alone. Anything beyond the border of the wood was foreign land, a place that certainly meant getting caught where he didn’t want to be. But there was something so mesmerizing about the way she moved, marred by the window panes and hidden from the entirety of his view.

He needed to get closer, pulled from the safety of the darkness by an invisible string like a collar around his neck. He needed to see her.

You remembered the first time you had laid eyes upon the rugged picture that made up Clone Force 99. They were five of the strangest-looking troopers you had seen in your lifetime as a Jedi, but that did not stray you from the path of taking them on as their commanding general. They were a puzzle in themselves, a multi-part portrait that needed to be analyzed before truly being able to approach and appreciate them for who they were. You had never backed down from such a challenge; not when you were but a youngling, and certainly not now.

When one looked at the small group of clones, Wrecker was surely the first their gazes were drawn to. He was a tall, sinewy brute that deviated from his brothers in every way possible. He was loud and clumsy, a walking accident waiting to happen. But his heart hung precariously on his sleeve, something that amused you on the many days you were graced with his haphazard compliments. There was nothing he couldn’t tear apart, not even the moral code you were taught to keep a small wall between you and your soldiers.

Crosshair and Echo seemed to share the sense that quiet was solitude, and you were forced to admit they were right. They seemed most at ease when the rain of Kamino pattered on the windows and there was no one else around to berate them for their attitude, or prosthetics. Like the lilting bridge of a quiet village song, they each carried themselves with a sort of taught grace no one could be born with naturally.

The brains and quick-talking mind of the group, clone trooper Tech was certainly one you were forced to get comfortable around quick, if you wanted to keep these boys at your back. He was brutal in his honesty and spoke in riddles of numbers and statistics only he seemed to understand, an astounding genius in his own time. He was less than humble, but when it came to your commands, he was more than willing to follow you into the dark.

Then, there came Hunter. The sergeant of Clone Force 99, the inky-faced bloodhound that could sniff you and the lies you told him of being ‘just tired’ out from miles away. He was guarded, you could give him that, but the moments it seemed that only you saw were the water that diluted the blood of his facade. Scarred shoulders and calloused hands, tired, woeful eyes, lips that bled and wound his words into a sort of smokey lullaby; they were all part of the watercolor painting that was him. He weeped at the corners and he was torn at the edges, but there was nothing short of a masterpiece that stared back at you when you met his gaze.

As a Jedi, you had grown under the strict policy you were not allowed attachments. There was only yourself and the Force, and there would be nothing that came between you and it. You were allowed to have sexual relations, but you were not allowed to love. You could have friends, but no one worth glancing over your shoulder for. You felt a strange, fluttering sensation of guilt when you spoke to Hunter, fearful someone would somehow know of the red strings you had looped around yourself. Tangled in your own, selfish doing, you had enraptured yourself with him. The clone was more than a number to you, worth more than the DNA and the materials it took to make him in the lab where he and his brothers came from. No, he was far beyond that. He was the ears that listened to your pitiful cries and worries in the middle of the night, the touches on your shoulder before missions that lasted a few moments too long, the lips that curved upwards into that rare smile when he caught sight of you from across the atrium.

Hunter was a solider, and yourself a Jedi. You that, even from the first tingle you felt, it was destined to fall apart.

The rich yellow pools of light bathed the hound’s features in gold as he slowly approached the cabin in the wood, even the locusts and the crickets silencing their songs to watch him brave the unknown. As he got closer, his sensitive ears pricked. He tilted his head, eyes sloped into a sad sort of way, permanent upon the plane of his face. He picked up the low, faint murmur of a hum; a song that was muttered under the sigh of a breath. The woman was singing.

He slunk around the perimeter of the small house, the weeds brushing against his legs and attempting to tie him down, hold him back from what could lie within. He broke free, determined and defiant, and continued on. The tilted frame of the back door presented itself to him and he found himself entranced at the first step, drawn like a cursed sailor to the pits where the siren resided. It was a song that wriggled its way into his chest, squeezed his heart, then retreated. He mustered up what cluster of courage sat in his belly, then stalked up the steps.

You could recall the crunching of the snow beneath your shoes on the surface of Kaller, the sight of short clouds of your breath fanning in front of your face in the cold. The sun had just showed its face over the peaks of the mountains that created across the horizon’s edge, no longer fearful of the battle that had taken place across the slopes of the bank down below. Lifeless clankers lay like fallen soldiers at your feet, broken down and forever resting in a bow to you, as if worshipping the robes wrapped around your body and the lightsaber tucked into your belt. Just across the way, the Jedi you had been sent to provide reinforcements for, Depa Billaba and her padawan, conversed with their clones in hushed voices.

Your attention was drawn from the machines when a shout reached you from across the battlefield. “That’ll show them not to mess with us, huh, General?” said Wrecker. He propped his helmet up on the crown of his head as he and his brothers approached you, obedient to fall back to your side when the dust settled.

“That it will, Wreck,” you replied before kicking the head of a nearby clanker. It thudded with a metallic protest. “You boys did good. I’m looking forward to writing up today’s report.” You flashed them a pleased grin before placing your hands on Echo and Tech’s shoulders. “Maybe the Kaminoans will finally let you all come to Coruscant with me.”

It was a sentence that promised a bit of hope that would likely never come. Being an experimental unit, Clone Force 99 wasn’t allowed with you to the Jedi Temple, or anywhere besides their rainy little home planet, for that matter. Past explanations of risks echoed in your mind - outbursts, accidents, anything that would associate the Kaminoans with rogue clones. It was better to keep your soldiers on Kamino, they had told you, and for you to simply pick them up when it was time for a mission.

It wasn’t at all fair, at least in the pits of your mind behind your foax smile of understanding and the forced nod of your head. The other Jedi explored the galaxy with their units, and you were forced to check yours out like rental practice droids at the Temple. They were more than weapons built to destroy, and decommission when they’d had their fair share of orders and executed commands. They were alive, like exploding stars reflected in your eyes at night, with emotions that designated their expressions and heads full of thoughts they couldn’t control.

You wished more for your boys, but unless the Order suddenly fell, you would be separated from them each and every day, again and again.

“That’ll be the day,” spoke Crosshair through his helmet. His voice came out staticky and muffled due to the modulator.

You turned to look at Hunter, who had his helmeted gaze turned toward the forest that whispered and waved gently in the breeze that tossed your robes back and forth. Extending your hand, you placed it on the armor plate that rested on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

There was a long, silent pause before he answered. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Something’s… off.”

“Yeah, it’s how freezing this planet is,” said Wrecker, giving his elder brother a good shove that nearly sent him stumbling. Hunter barked at him, and your attention was drawn not to your surroundings, but to within.

You had become accustomed from a young age to the feeling of the Force flowing through your veins like it had replaced the blood that once was there. It was a part of you, a living bit of your body, your soul, your aura, that you noticed even the slightest tilt or turn it took. This was not a tilt or turn; this was a halting stop. You blinked rapidly, sensing a disturbance you’d never experienced before. You were drowning so deep in the flood that you were barely able to hear the clones cease their talking behind you.

A new voice, crackly and filled with a venom you’d only heard once or twice in your life, seeped through the speaker on the comm device in Tech’s hand. “Execute Order 66.”

Your gaze was pulled, against your will, to Master Billaba and her padawan. The air had become chillier then, reaching deep into your bones and seeping into your veins like liquid ice. Your mouth opened in a silent scream when the first of her clones raised their blasters and opened fire upon them. You didn’t see where Caleb had gone; all you saw was the slowed motion of her body hitting the ground, her lightsaber slipping from her grasp and becoming lost in the whiteness that embraced her and swallowed her up. Your hand, trembling and shaking with the deep, blood-thinning panic in your heart, flew to your own weapon. Your head turned slightly, your thoughts speeding like podracers as you faced your squad. You couldn’t see their expressions through their helmets, but it took you a long, long few seconds to realize they had not drawn their guns.

They, too, watched in horror as the Jedi across the field was gunned down like nothing but air. You took a step backwards, toward them, eyes large and throat suddenly too dry to speak.

In the corner of your vision, you caught the gentlest of motions, too subtle for the others to notice. You turned, your heart skipping three beats at once, when you realized Crosshair had leveled his Firepuncher rifle with your chest. You trembled, a petrified gasp escaping your lips as he stared down the barrel at you. He had demonstrated that rifle’s raw power for you before during training, allowing you to see how it could take the head off a dummy with just the slightest of grazes from half a mile away. With the end just feet from your chest, there was no doubt it would leave you with a gaping hole through your middle.

His brothers took notice of your visible terror, following the gun from its barrel, pointed at you, to the trigger, held steady beneath his finger.

“Crosshair,” said Echo, his voice nearly an imitation of its true self, filled with fear and uncertainty.

The sniper’s head tilted slightly downwards, as if glaring at you through the visor. You couldn’t understand why he was doing this, why the other clone troopers were making their way toward you from across the battlefield with their blasters at the ready. You were his friend; you had shared so many nights with him and his brothers, entertaining them with Force tricks and listening to their stories.

Just a fraction of a second before Crosshair pulled the trigger, Hunter leapt forward in a blur of red and black, a force of nature stirred into motion by the very end of all things. He shoved the gun to the side, sending the shot of energy skimming across the plane of your arm. You cried out and reached to hold the searing wound, a sensation like being lit aflame engulfing your entire limb. Stumbling back, you nearly fell.

“Run, general, go!” said Hunter after delivering a swift blow to his brother’s exposed throat. “Run!”

You wasted no time in getting away, for once obeying your sergeant’s orders instead of the other way around. You left uneven footprints in the snow, like they were blotted by a leaking pen, as you ran. Through the battlefield and into the tree line, heart-trembling sobs escaping your lips as blaster fire narrowly missed you in your retreat. The woods welcomed you with open arms, embracing your wounded form as you stumbled toward the sliver of what you hoped to be salvation.

You didn’t have your soldiers, nor your friends, nor anything else. You were, as you ran, completely, and utterly, alone.

The hound stopped its predator-like pace at the top of the porch steps, which creaked and groaned in protest beneath his weight. His keen eyes, dark and deep in the dim light that escaped the windows, wandered from the rocking chair to the door. It was the only barrier between him and the woman.

Here, much closer, so much closer he could practically feel the vibrations of her footsteps upon the floorboards, he could hear her song so clearly it sounded as if she was singing to him specifically. Perhaps she was. He held the thought within his mind like the life of his own, cradling it like there was nothing else in the world around him.

He could not bring himself to scratch at the door or whine, could not bring himself to stop the song she sang for him; for him and only him. This sweet, syrupy melody was not for the foxes that crept in the shadows, nor was it for the birds that perched in the trees and mocked him. No, this was just for him.

The hound lay himself down just outside the door, content to stare into the wilderness surrounding him and the cabin and the woman that sang for him. He shut his eyes, those weary irises of his, before he found himself teetering on the line between consciousness and sleep. He allowed himself to fall into the latter.

The few months that followed the shattering aftermath of Order 66 were some of the darkest you had ever experienced. The Jedi Order had fallen. You heard of no survivors, other than yourself. There came no contact from anyone you knew, no cry out through the dark, no lifeline tossed out to your drowning form in the endless ocean you were trapped in. There was nothing; even the Force was silent, grieving for everything it had lost.

You took up a quiet, inconspicuous residence in a corner of Tatooine, far from any towns and a long walk from the nearest trading post. The more populated planets - Naboo, Alderaan, Coruscant, and the likes - they were a guaranteed trap if you even thought about stepping foot upon their surfaces. So you sold your saber - you kept the Kyber crystal, of course - and told the trader you found it. It was the hardest thing you believed you had to do. You remembered building that lightsaber as a small youngling, your hands guided by your Master as he taught you of the Jedi way and how to handle the weapon. In return for your prized possession, you received a speeder; the only way of transportation that didn’t leave you dead of dehydration in the deserts, lit by the two suns hanging over your head like swinging pendulums.

It was late at night, when you were more alone than you had ever felt and the only sound were your own labored breaths, uneven from the tears treading down your cheeks, when you thought of your boys.

You had heard from passing tongues that the clones had successfully wiped out the entire Jedi order, and now served a faction that called themselves the Galactic Empire. The Republic was no more, reduced to dust beneath the feet of those who celebrated in the streets and hailed the troopers as heroes. Surely, you figured, the clones had not been planning the attack. They had to have been forced to; after you’d fled, had your Clone Force 99 assisted in the slaughter of your brothers and sisters?

You attempted to shake the horrid thoughts from your head. No, they couldn’t. They wouldn’t. Sweet, gentle Wrecker could never shoot down unsuspecting Jedi, Echo would never even dream of turning his blaster upon those he considered friends. Hunter - your quiet, thoughtful Hunter - he simply wasn’t capable of raising the barrel of a gun to your head and firing.

But hadn’t Crosshair? Hadn’t all clones, regardless of their status, been made to follow orders?

It was in the early light of the evening, at the middle of the hour, when the Marauder had appeared out of the pink-hued sky and landed just a ways from your hut. From your place in the small farm you tended for whatever credits you could scrape together, your fingers wrapped around the hilt of the knife on your hip. They had finally tracked you down. You were going to be murdered by your own squad, your friends, your love.

You prepared yourself for the painful, yet quick embrace of death, waited for the blaster shot to fly from the lowered ramp and plant itself directly through your heart. But it never came, just a murmur of a worry in the corners of your mind. Instead, four familiar figures descended the ramp and pulled off their helmets to look at you. At their legs, a small, blonde-haired girl peered out at you.

Hunter spoke first, and when you heard his voice in your ears for the first time since he told you that day to run, you nearly crumbled to your knees. “General?”

The song had stopped when the hound awoke. He raised his head, bleary vision slowly adjusting to the soft daylight filtering over the tops of the still-sedated treetops. When the clearing of a throat hit his ears, the sleep had vanished from his eyes and his feet hit the porch hard.

The woman had taken a place on the rocking chair beside him, a plate in hand and wearing a silky gown that whispered in the breeze like it was made just for her. Her eyes - he could have gazed into her eyes forever, entranced like a bee flying towards a spider’s web, blissfully unaware of what could have been beyond them.

She reached out a hand, her fingers lilting and delicate, and waited for him to close the silent gap. The hound watched her for a long moment, skin itching to feel her touch. Gingerly, tentatively, he pawed forward and nudged her hand with the wet nose of his snout. A sweet, honey-like smile crossed her features. He felt tethered to that smile, chained to her with the collar he had placed around his neck himself.

The porch became his home. She became his to protect, to love, to have.

“You’re spacing out again, you know.”

You blinked a few times, drawn from your thoughts by the small, tilted voice beside you. Turning your gaze downward, you allowed a gentle smile to paint across your face as you placed a hand atop the neatly-styled mop of blonde hair at your chest. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

“About what?” Omega asked, hopping over a log that had fallen across the untread path.

“Hmm. Something that happened a while ago.” Finally allowing yourself to expel the haunting thoughts from your mind, you glanced further up the direction you were headed. The rest of the squad had taken to leading the way for you ladies, stamping out a path through the upturned wood that surrounded you like a wild ribcage, protecting the heart within. Native creatures sang out around you to their content, humming the monotonous tunes of their home.

Back on Ord Mantell, Cid had presented you and your boys with an opportunity you all agreed was far too good to pass up. Somewhere deep in the recesses of this forested planet was a bounty worth your ship, and then some. He was a plunderer or something or other, wanted for terrorizing nearby villages with his band of hires looking for something to last them until they moved on to bigger and bolder. It was nothing you all couldn’t handle; a few wanna-be big shots that preyed on the innocent? Child’s play.

As much as you enjoyed Omega’s company and the advances she brought to the clones’ table, you were forced to admit to yourself that you missed Crosshair. He had always been part of the Batch, one of the supports that kept the entire picture from shattering on the hard, cold reality of the floor. That inhibitor chip, the one the boys had explained to you, had a tight grip on him that refused to relent; that was why he’d shot at you, attempted to slaughter you where you stood despite the blood that went deep. You wanted him back; but as of now, there was nothing you could do.

You glanced up once more when Hunter fell back from the others to fall in step beside you, helmet secure over his inked face that still sent tremors of excited nerves through your system. “Omega,” he said and snagged the young girl’s attention. “Go and scout with the others. They need your help.”

She took off without even a question or a curious glance, willing to bend to his word obediently. You smiled as she hurried on to catch up with her brothers. Despite not being a soldier or made for the same reasons as them, she followed orders like one. Perhaps she was taking after them more than she realized.

“You’re good with her, you know,” you said to Hunter once the little girl was out of earshot. Twigs cracked deafeningly beneath both your boots, the forest breathing in the new scents and sights you brought into the ecosystem. “But I always knew you were a kid person.”

“Did you, now?” Hunter turned his head slightly to face you. You weren’t able to see his expression, given only the emotionless plane of his helmet, but you were able to hear the small smile in his husky tone. “How do you figure?”

You shrugged a playful shoulder, folding your hands behind your back in the way that your Master used to do. “The time when we evacuated that one little village,” you recalled, strolling alongside him as if you had been your entire life. “You and I took a row of houses to check, and you found that boy that had been separated from his parents. You carried him like you’d done it a thousand times before.”

Hunter gave a gentle chuckle, one that wriggled its way beneath your skin and into the cavity of your chest. His laugh hadn’t changed since you’d been separated. “I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “But… Omega’s different. She’s - well-“

“I get it,” you said, because you did. “She means a lot to you.”

His gaze stayed focused on you, as if you were the only light he could see for miles, and if he looked away it was vanish. “Yeah,” he agreed. “She does.”

The smile across your lips stayed where it had planted itself, your gaze wandering along the slopes and curves of his armor. You could identify nearly dent and scratch, every ping and mark, how it got there, and when. You admired the spaces between the plates, where you were able to see slivers of his blacks and the missable lines that told the story of his body beneath.

Since you had reunited with the Batch, your out-of-line thoughts from before Order 66 returned with a hiss in your ear and a tug at the pit of your stomach. Now that there was no longer a Jedi Order, the rules about attachments no longer applied. You had to admit that you felt incredibly guilty at the hint of excitement that attempted to flood your brain. The Jedi were gone; it was the least you could do, the only survivor you knew of, to honor their codes and what they lived by.

But perhaps, murmured a voice within you, it was time the code changed.

Even if you did finally come to peace with acting upon your desires, you doubted that Hunter felt the same way. There was no way he did; he was a soldier trained for battle, not the warfare that came with exposing your every bump and bruise to someone else in the low light of bliss. He was a man that was strict to his beliefs and his morals; no way in the stars he would allow himself to trip and stumble for someone such as his old general. But, you argued with yourself, he was as human as you. Surely he felt some kind of carnal needs and wants, just as you did?

You had just opened your mouth to conjure up another story from the long-dead past when the entire world trembled and screamed around you. The ground shook like it was splitting and the air was filled with the horrible sound of an explosion that nearly sent you stumbling for balance. All your gazes were pulled up to the mountain face you were passing alongside. At the very top, situated in a crevice between the rocky arms, figures had lit a cacophony of eruptions that sent rubble, big and small chunks, raining down toward you. The bounty; he must have seen you along your way.

“Get out of the way!” hollered Hunter. He reached out in a blur of motion to grab your arm, hurrying you deeper into the wood so that the approaching boulders would miss their targets. The others shielded themselves behind trees, the bases just thick enough to cover the entirety of their masses from the onslaught.

The first wave of rock, torn and blasted at the edges, came tumbling down the mountainside like a mist that signaled oncoming rain. Then came the second wave. Boulders as big as the ship slammed into the level ground at the bottom, shaking the forest floor beneath your feet with ear-splitting booms upon collision. Trees snapped under their raw momentum like nothing but sticks, forcing the rest of the Batch deeper into cover.

You and Hunter stopped behind one of the fallen pieces of rubble, each of you heaving in breaths as you pressed yourselves against the surface. Mustering up the courage in your belly, you risked a peek out around the corner. Another explosion sent part of the mountaintop heading for you, cutting through the air like arrows from the heavens. From somewhere nearby, you heard Omega shriek. With her small voice ringing in your ears, you found yourself stepping out from cover and approaching the tree line, despite Hunter’s calls for you to come back.

You had not used the Force since that day on Kaller, unable to feel its life soaring through you like it once had. But you felt in now, clear as the rubble seconds away from flattening you to nothing but a fond memory. Behind you, Hunter yelled. Your breath hitched in your throat. Your hands thrust themselves outward upon their own accord and an energy only you could feel burst from your fingertips, a swarm of power that you pulled from the marrow of your bones. The rocks, all at once, froze in place in the middle of the air, as if time had suspended itself in some vain attempt to save your life. You did not need time to save you; you trusted in the Force.

At your grunt of a command, the rubble was sent hurtling back up through the air toward the figures at the peak of the mountain. It collided with their last position you had seen them, just in time for a third explosion to rock the world again. This one was the biggest, the scream that followed the downpour. A deep, twisting, sickening sort of rage filled you to the brim.

How dare they attack you? How dare they use the earth to their will, point their fingers and send nature to do their dirty work? How dare they think nothing but dirt of you, challenge the power you had within you?

You would show them. Would show them all - the ones above, and at your back. You would show them who you could be.

A scream ripped through your throat like a series of knives tearing apart your vocal chords, slashing through the trees and filling the ears of your companions. You moved your hands upward, forward. A great, unimaginable tremor overtook reality. At the base of the small mountain, the foundation the galaxy had created for its beacon in the sky, a rupture appeared in the thick stone. It fissured, like glass cracking, and spread with long, spindly arms up, up, up. Your cry deepened; the ground shook and pebbles began to suspend themselves in the air. The crack worsened until, after what seemed like an eternity, a sharp snap sliced through the air.

No more explosions followed, because there was no one to ignite them.

You had split the mountain in half.

Your voice died out with a whimper and you were suddenly slammed with an exhaustion you had never felt before. It drained the life from your body, extending from your feet to the very tips of your fingers. Even your eyelids were heavy, weighing as deeply as were the sins you carried with you from the past. You forced your gaze to turn upwards, taking in the destruction you had caused.

What had been those thoughts running through your mind? Had… had that been the Dark Side?

The calling of your name drew your attention, turning you in place. Your tired eyes widened. Trees had fallen in your wake and the ground itself had been split just like its sky-reaching sister. You had done this.

You took a step forward when your own name reached your ears again. The Batch, following Hunter like a pack trailing after their alpha, emerged from the wreckage you had caused.

“Hunter…” you murmured and reached out a hand. You wanted desperately to grasp his shoulder, to have his touch on you as he checked you over. But he surged right past you. He didn’t even look at you. Following his movements, you found a sight that nearly sent you sprawling.

Lying across the cracked and crying ground was yourself, face hidden in the dirt and limbs unmoving. Lungs failing you for breath, you looked down at your own hand; you could see directly through it.

Hunter stooped before the you on the ground, hands turning you over onto your back with a carefulness that made your heart soar and sink all at once. He spoke your name once, twice, shook your shoulder. Off came his helmet; it was tossed to the side, covered in the shadows of his brothers and sister as they gathered at his back in a horrified silence. Hunter’s eyes were a shade of fearful you had never seen before, his lips parted in such a way it looked as though he may have screamed himself. Gently, he held the back of your neck to support your head like it was the most precious thing he’d ever laid his hands on, then pressed the side of his own head to your chest. He was searching for something, anything.

You breathed loud, unable to control the hyperventilation that overtook your body, your mind, your everything. “Hunter,” you said and reached out to touch him. Your hand went right through his arm, and you stumbled backwards. Turning your attention to the others, you exclaimed, tears blurring the corners of your vision into a bleary painting. “Tech! Tech, I’m right here! Echo, Wrecker, Omega! I’m here! I’m right here!”

“Is she…” Wrecker’s voice came out in a hushed tone, as if saying the following word was a sin he didn’t dare risk.

Hunter’s eyes had shut, brow furrowed in concentration. They opened, the pupils dilating in the sunlight. “No,” he said. She’s alive.”

“We need to get back to the ship and get her to Ord Mantell,” said Echo and bent to kneel at your other side. He reached out to grab Hunter’s shoulder, forcing his gaze to detach from your face. “We need to hurry. We don’t know what happened.”

Your pleas, your screams and howls - they all went unheard, fallen on deaf ears as Hunter picked up your limp, dead-like form and held you close to his chest as the team retreated the way you had all come. You followed, your footsteps in the mud nonexistent next to theirs.

When the hound emerged from the wooded earth that was once his shadow-bound home, he knew something was wrong. It could have been a different sensation beneath his paws, or perhaps the whisper of an unfamiliar scent that hung in the air. Only when he approached the clearing did he realize just what it was.

The lights in the cabin had gone. It was cold, dark.

Empty.

You had come to the conclusion that, for whatever reason the galaxy had decided on, you had succumbed to the promise of death that was supposed to be at the end of your life. There was nothing else you could come up to counter this; you had died. Perhaps a boulder had crushed you, or a piece of rubble had cracked you over the head just right, and this was the punishment you were damned to; watching your friends mourn and grief, blind and willingly oblivious to the truth.

They had taken your body back to the Marauder, which was now leaping through the tunnel of hyperspace as fast at the engine would allow. Lying in Hunter’s bunk, you were surrounded as Tech both monitored the medical device he had hooked you up to, and tapped away on the holopad in his grasp. The yellow, glowing tint of his goggles did phenomenal work of masking his true expression behind the facade of indifference he had put on.

“So?” asked Echo as he ducked into the room from the pilot’s seat. “What happened?”

“Will she be alright?” demanded Wrecker. “Because if I need to beat someone up-“

“There will be no one to shove around, Wrecker, because there is no one at fault here.” Tech sniffed and adjusted his goggles as he turned to face you, eyes trained dutifully on his screen. “She’s gone into a state of unconsciousness often referred to as ‘Force sleep.’ It’s a condition only Jedi are capable of falling under. Sources indicate that when a Force user exerts too much of themselves into their ability, they can drain their bodies to the near brink of death.” His gaze flickered to Omega, who was sat cradling Lula to her chest. “Think of it as a sort of hibernation. She’s simply resting, allowing her connection to the Force to replenish. She’ll wake when she’s ready.”

Hunter forced himself to tear his gaze away from your still form, your skin caressed by the wrinkled covers of his bunk. “How long until she does, exactly?” he asked.

Tech exhaled a sigh. It seemed he had come to the point he was least looking forward to reciting. “There’s truly no telling,” he admitted and shuffled his weight slightly. “Force sleeps have been recorded only a small handful of times, the shortest being a day and the longest… two months.”

“Two months!” exclaimed Omega. She gestured with her hand, a few tears poking at the corners of her eyes. “You’re saying it could be two months before she wakes up?”

“For once,” he said regrettably, “I haven’t got a clue. I would assume the more a Jedi exerts themselves, the longer their Force sleep would be.”

“She split open a mountain,” murmured Echo. “That’s got to count for something.”

While the others began to murmur and argue between themselves, you padded your way across the small room and toward Hunter. He sat beside the bunk he had placed you so gently on, as if you would break with one wrong move, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched you. His eyes, oh - they did such wondrous things to you. The way they held a steady gaze over your face, how they continued to sweep up and down your body as if you might show some sign of waking. Your breath hitched when he reached out, just the smallest of movements, and ran a gloved knuckle over the curve of your jaw.

The hound sat at the old, creaky porch and stared upwards to the door. There came no song from within, no footsteps he would be able to recognize from miles away. He scratched at the floorboards.

There came no reply.

Upon arriving back at Ord Mantell, they took your body to Cid’s bar, concealing themselves in the shadows along the journey to avoid any unwanted attention. Your informant’s eyes had grown when she laid her gaze upon the clones walking back through her door, your lifeless form cradled in Hunter’s arms like an announcement of your so-called death. He held you to himself so gingerly that you nearly sobbed again while he carried you into the small apartment above the bar where you often slept, fingers dug gently into your skin to ensure you wouldn’t fall, your head tucked into the crook of his neck so that, on the chance he hoped you would awake, your first inhale would be of his scent.

Omega made it her work to keep you comfortable during your sleep, like the good little sister she tried so desperately to prove herself as. She made your bed into a little nest of sorts and covered your legs with blankets in case you became cold, even placed Lula at your side should you need her.

In the weeks that followed, you found yourself teetering between madness and reality. You were trapped between worlds, confined to a certain distance from your body before being pulled back like there was a chain attached to your ankle. There was rarely a moment when you were alone in your room, always watched over by one of your boys or Omega.

No other gaze protected you more so, however, than Hunter’s, his warm, calculating eyes like beacons that were trying to guide you home. He stayed at your side like a loyal hound, intent on worshipping and serving your form even after you opened your eyes. It was in these moments you sat beside him and watched yourself, watched your fingers and toes for any kind of movement, any kind of signal that you were ready to re-enter your vessel.

“Hello, cyar’ika,” spoke Hunter softly one day when he arrived to take his watch over your form. He crossed the room gingerly, as if considering every step he took, before taking his usual seat in the chair beside your bed. He wore his blacks instead of his armor, signaling to you he hadn’t been out in a while. In fact, you were unable to remember the last time you’d seen him in his armor since you’d fallen into Force sleep.

Though it was evident he did not expect any kind of reply, he continued to speak, even as he reached out to run a knuckle along your jaw, caress the tips of your fingertips.

“Omega’s been practicing with her bow. She nearly took someone’s head off, but she’s beginning to get the hang of it.” The ghost of a smile attempted to curl the edges of his mouth, but it ultimately failed. He emitted a long exhale, the pad of his thumb running along the edge of your pinkie finger. “I’ve been thinking about you, mesh’la. About the old days.” He paused, as if rethinking his words. You urged him on, and as if it had actually done something, he continued. “I remember the first time you looked us over, in the hangar back on Kamino. You were - well, you were the first human woman we’d ever seen. And I don’t think I’ve looked at another one since you gave me my first command.”

You moved around so that you were facing him, even though he could not see you. Your blood had stopped its flow in your veins, your heart skipped three beats all at once.

“Those months without you, I don’t… I don’t know how we managed. How I managed. We thought you were dead - I thought you were dead. And then you came back to us.” He scooted closer to your body, taking your hand in his own and raising it so that your palm was pressed against the inked plane of his cheek. You swore you could practically feel his touch. “Please don’t leave me again, cyar’ika. Come back to me, and I won’t ever leave you. I swear it to you. Please - I’ve loved you for too long to let it end like this.”

Your emotions exploding through your systems, flooding over and taking control like they had longed to do since he stepped into the room, you released a heart-wrenching sob and threw your arms around his shoulders.

He loved you. He loved you, he loved you, he loved you.

Through your body-wracking cries and the way your heart thundered like a war drum in your ears, you were just barely able to comprehend the small gasp that escaped his lips. You stayed where you were, unable to let him go; you were intent on staying there for as long as he did, celebrating and mourning for your newfound love here in the void between life and death. Then - his hands smoothed over your back. His touch traveled to the nape of your neck, cradling the most vulnerable part of you with whatever more he had to give.

Startled by the sudden movement that you could truly feel, you pulled back to find Hunter staring into your gaze with a hopeful, shocked expression, one thumb brushing over the edge of your cheekbone. He was looking at you, no longer through you. You glanced down at yourself, your adrenaline pumping. You could see yourself again. You were awake.

“Cyar’ika?” he said, dragging your attention back to him. His eyes were softer than you had ever seen them before, his walls lowered to the ground, his defenses torn and unwilling to be mended.

Feeling another throaty sob working its way up from your stomach, you grabbed the sides of his face and pressed your forehead to his, as if this would be the last time you were ever allowed to see him again. The place where his skin met yours burned and tingled with a delightful zap, charging you through and through. “Say it again,” you begged of him, thumbing at his bottom lip. His eyes searched yours intently, wandering into the pits of your very soul. “Please, tell me again.”

“I love you.”

Through your tears and the trembling your body was unable to stop, you pressed forward into the unknown. Your mouth connected with his in a messy sort of way until he immediately pushed back, meeting your urgency with his own. The kiss was soft but desperate all at the same time, teeth occasionally clashing in your haste to finally connect when you should have so, so long ago. You nearly startled when his tongue prodded at your lips, asking permission to enter; the first of many stages he had to pass in order to get what he needed. He licked into your mouth, exploring with the deepest curiosity you could even imagine.

“I won’t leave you,” you said when you parted for air, foreheads still melded together. You reached up to law at his face, explicably new yet so determined to conquer this new challenge before you. “I’m right here. I love you too much to leave you, Hunter.”

Your words seemed to strike a spark within him, seemed to ignite a tiny flame that was then doused in fuel, because in the next moment he was up from his chair and pushing you back against the bed your body had been trapped on for weeks. But you were more than willing to stay put now, especially when he settled his weight over you and began to plant open-mouthed kisses at the place where your jaw met your neck.

“Kark,” Hunter murmured into your skin. He gradually began to move lower and lower, his teeth grazing your skin and sending chills racing up your spine. “I thought I’d lost you. You can’t - mm - can’t do that to me.” He worked his way down your chest after making quick work of your shirt, then stopped his kisses when he reached the band of your pants. His partially tear-filled gaze met yours as he settled himself between your legs. “Are you feeling well enough to do this?”

You nodded your head, wiggling your lower body in an attempt to urge him on. “Yes. Please, yes, Hunter.”

Satisfied, he gently pulled your pants and underwear off and over your ankles, leaving you completely exposed to his starving eyes. You felt a flutter of self consciousness tapping at your ribcage; the last time you could remember being naked in front of somebody was when you were a child, just a youngling, and an attendant droid at the Temple helped you bathe and settle after your trip to Coruscsnt from your home planet.

Any dubious thoughts you were fostering were pushed aside, however, when he brought his face close to the apex between your thighs and shut his eyes. You wondered what he was doing for a long moment before he nudged his nose up against your clit, and you released a stunted gasp. He was taking in your scent like an animal, allowing your musk to sink into his veins and become one with him.

It wasn’t much longer before he settled his hands on the meat of your upper legs, his fingers digging into your plush skin. Gaze flickering up to you, he pushed out his tongue from between his lips and pressed the muscle flat against your folds, just allowing you - and himself -to get used to the sensation. A whine escaped your throat as you searched for something to hold on to, your hands closing around the sheets of the bed. He adjusted himself before at last giving into his indulgences and lapping at your heat. He got accustomed to your taste, your feel, before attaching his mouth to the sensitive bundle of nerves that was your clit and beginning to suck.

“Oh, maker, Hunter.” You couldn’t stop yourself from moaning, a star-like bliss hanging over your vision. You gasped and cried out as he sped up his ministrations, acceleration to a speed that reminded you of a starving man eating his first meal in weeks.

Hunter pulled your thighs further apart with his hands without any sort of effort or resistance, the hair that escaped his bandana hanging like curtains to frame his face. He looked like a devout believer, on his knees and eyes full of a love that could not be swayed be even the strongest of shoves. He looked as though he could have been praying, worshipping the goddess that was splayed out before him, begging for anything she was generous enough to gift him. He assumed he had pleased her, because this was the best gift of them all.

All too soon, it began to come to the red curtain-dropping end. Your whines and moans became louder and he took that as his cue to move his tongue faster, harder. The muscle worked itself in and out of your entrance, his lips clasped around you in such an intimate way you nearly began to cry all over again. The coil in your stomach was tightening, threatening to snap.

“I’m - I’m close,” you panted unceremoniously.

“Cum for me, pretty girl,” said Hunter, his breath fanning across your slick heat.

His words alone sent you tumbling over the edge you had been teetering precariously on, and you were more than happy to fall. The pressure in your stomach released and you came with a cry that resembled that of a wounded animal, body relaxing and limbs aching from their previous tense state. He lapped up everything you gave him and then some, making a point to catch your eye before licking his lips and swallowing what he’d gathered on his tongue.

After what seemed like an eternity of catching your breath, Hunter crawled back to you and leaned his weight on his forearms, trapping you between the mattress and his body. You reached a lead-like arm up to cradle his face, the face you had longed after for so long, and now that you finally had him you felt you could die happy.

“Don’t leave me like that, mesh’la,” he murmured to you, nuzzling his nose against yours. “Please.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said. “I’m right here.”

Daylight spilled into the clearing in the wood, bathing the hound’s sleeping form in a hazy sort of light that resembled the glow that had swallowed him when he first arrived to the cabin. He was placed at the back door beside the rocking chair, body curled toward the seat as if he hoped she would be there when he awoke.

A melodic whistle was what pulled him from his melancholic dreamland, his gaze searching for the source of the noise. When he found it, he was off the ground before he realized what was truly happening.

The hound met her in the field that had filled with wildflowers over the change of the seasons, his eyes squinted and jowls pulled into a large grin. She laughed that sweet laugh of hers that he could listen to for days as she reached down to greet him.

She would not leave him, not ever. She wasn’t going anywhere.

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